Pilot and S3.
SPNSPN
Third fire
Sam read somewhere that people that lost loved ones often felt the first few days were the hardest, because it takes them a second when they wake up to remember what happened and they get hit by loss all over again.
He envies those people.
He doesn't get a second of not knowing Jessica is dead, because he dreams of her dying all night long. He wakes up with her name on his lips and his eyes burning.
He thought he wouldn't be able to sleeping the day after she died, but he did. Dean drugged him. He thought drugs were supposed to make you not dream, but he dreamt all night long. He woke up crying and panting and Dean's arms were around him. Dean's arms, the ones that dragged him out of the fire.
He resents them.
He wished he died on the fire. Either one of them. First one would be better, then Jessica would be alive.
Dean forces water down his throat, makes him eat, drags him to the shower, drags him back. Dean gives up on trying to shave him and Sam thinks his brother doesn't want him near a razor blade.
His brother is right.
Dean shoves a package on his lap and it's a suit and a tie. Sam looks lost and Dean tells him about the funeral. Yeah, there's a funeral. Normal people get funerals. Sam's probably going to be salted and burned in a field so he doesn't come back as an angry spirit.
He would come back as an angry spirit, he just knows it.
He doesn't want to go to the funeral. He doesn't want to see Jess's parents, their friends, her picture on a frame, her closed coffin. Dean says words he doesn't care to listen. Dean barks to order him to dress and Sam punches his brother. Dean doesn't deflect and Sam knows he could. Dean is stronger and faster and better trained and is not rusty and has been deflecting Sam's punches their entire lives. Dean doesn't deflect because he chooses not to deflect. He takes the blow willingly and all anger washes out of Sam.
He's crying again and Dean's holding him again. Dean. The brother he left, he abandoned. The brother who always had his back. The brother he didn't speak for two years because of a fight that seems so unimportant now it would make him cry if he wasn't already bawling. Dean's all Sam's got.
Dean's all that's left. Dean has always been all that's left.
He picks up the suit and dresses himself. Dean fixes his tie then drives him. Jess's parents live a couple hours away. Sam doesn't ask how Dean knows the address.
When they arrive, Sam's legs are wobbling. Dean walks beside him and somehow he manages to scare off every single person that wants to hug Sam. He makes an exception to Jess's mother, because mothers are Dean's weakness and Jess' mother is blond and beautiful and sobbing.
The service lasts forever and Sam stands there, not thinking, looking ahead. His father would be proud of his stiff attention, if he ever bothered to show up again. Then they start to lay down the coffin and Sam feels weak and he drops down. It's a second, he never hits the floor. Dean's arms are around his back and his elbow and they're pushing Sam back on his feet. Dean's arms stay there, at arm's length until his brother's satisfied Sam's not collapsing again.
He doesn't resent them anymore.
They stay in Palo Alto for a week to work 'the case'. Dean works the case. Sam just stands in his brother's motel room and resents his life. Dean brings food every day, makes Sam eat and Sam feels somewhat five. Dean's up every time Sam has a nightmare and Sam feels even younger. Dean does laundry, Dean cleans the room, Dean makes sure Sam makes it.
Sam makes it.
Sam read somewhere that people that lost loved ones often felt the first few days were the hardest, because it takes them a second when they wake up to remember what happened and they get hit by loss all over again.
He envies those people.
He doesn't get a second of not knowing his brother is dead, because he can't go to sleep.
He can't go to sleep because there's research to do and every second he wastes sleeping is another second for his brother in Hell.
Sam doesn't sleep and Bobby can't make him. Sam eats, because he has to have energy to keep working, but he only eats at the brink of starvation when his brain starts to slow down. Not more than once every couple days. Sam doesn't shower and Sam doesn't shave.
His brother isn't there to make him.
His brother isn't there to make him make it.
Sam collapses on the floor when all his hope is gone and his brother isn't there to keep him from falling.
Sam collapses and Sam falls and he would give his own life, he would damn the world, he would do whatever it took to have his brother's arms pulling him from out of this third fire.